This excerpt from an 1890 article in The Arena seems relevant as we look at gun violence and other contemporary problems created by lack of employment and income – and hope.

It would be far better for society if instead of speculating on the forms of punishment we turned our attention to the means of preventing the crimes for which we punish the offenders. It has been observed that most of the murders occur among the poor people, and upon the top floors of tenement houses; that is to say, among the poorest of the poor. The connection between poverty and the crime of murder, like the connection between poverty and all other crime, is demonstrably close. If we could cure the social disease of poverty, the seeds of crime would be destroyed. The people rarely think of this. They think it is our business to punish crime; but it is our best business to prevent it. Our present organization of society manufactures criminals faster than we can possibly take care of them. Poverty degrades men; it robs them of leisure, which is absolutely necessary for the development of mind, and the proper control of the passions; it keeps the people hungry and fierce; it imbrutes them; it makes Ishmaels of them — their hand is against society as the hand of society is against them. Plant a generation of paupers, and you will reap a crop of criminals.

If we are wise we will turn our attention to the most important problem of this or any age: how to so enrich the people that the temptations to crime will be minified to the last possible degree. The solution of the problem is as simple as it is important. For every millionaire we shall have a thousand tramps; for every monopolist we shall have a hundred burglars; for every woman who lives in idleness upon the fruit of others’ toil, filched from them under the name of interest or rent, we shall have a score of prostitutes; for every vacant land owner and money limiter — the twin man-starvers — we shall have a murderer. One is the seed from which the other grows. Eliminate your monopolists, the king of whom is the owner of vacant land, and your problem of crime is settled. With open opportunities for men to apply their labor to natural wealth productions, tenfold more wealth would be produced and equitably distributed; and with wealth many times multiplied and equitably distributed, a criminal would be more of a curiosity than the original three-toed horse.

If memory serves, Hugh Pentecost was an Episcopal priest, perhaps in Newark. The title of the article from which these paragraphs come is “The Crime of Capital Punishment.”

I like the word “minified.” Maybe there is a useful slogan there: Minify Taxation! (“To make smaller or less significant; reduce.”) We could collect the revenue we need with lower taxes were we to concentrate our taxes on land value, in all its manifestations. And in the process, we would reduce poverty, reduce the cost of living, reduce wealth concentration, reverse sprawl, naturally create employment and self-employment opportunities, and stabilize our economy. It seems to me that any one of these goals is worthy, and if this reform would move us closer to any of these goals, it is worth pursuing.

And, importantly, with less need to rely on a social safety net, spending could be signficantly reduced.